As always, we have several dedicated threads for the hotter items each Black Friday. Please try to keep all discussion related to these items in their official threads. Other threads posted will likely be merged into this main thread.

I need at least one laptop, but, if the price is right, I will get two.

My daughter needs one that will play Roblox and Minecraft. We homeschool, so it will also be the laptop she uses for all of her schooling (she streams some of her lessons online and we will download Microsoft Office). She will possibly use it for streaming Netflix or Hulu as well on occasion.

I need at least one laptop, but, if the price is right, I will get two.

My daughter needs one that will play Roblox and Minecraft. We homeschool, so it will also be the laptop she uses for all of her schooling (she streams some of her lessons online and we will download Microsoft Office). She will possibly use it for streaming Netflix or Hulu as well on occasion.

Hopefully I will be able to find one for around the 300.00 mark.

We got DD one last year from Sam's club for 400 but I really like all the features. It was during one of their 1 day sales. She has loved it. Hope you find a great one!

I need to find my daughter one. Must be quad core with minimum 16gb rams. She is mechanical engineering major and that's what the software requires. She would prefer 13.3inch and a 2 in 1.
I would like to see a price if no higher than $700(dreaming I know)

I guess I am always passively surfing for a great deal on a good laptop. It's really confusing these days because we have lots of CPU, screen, memory, and storage options. Then there is the keyboard layout, whether it is backlit, the camera, battery life, and the speakers. Finally there is build quality.

Right now, I feel like Lenovo and Dell are building the best laptops. I have worked on a lot of laptops and most have some specific challenge you should be aware of (non-replaceable battery, hard to reach RAM or disk, or a case that is difficult to disassemble/reassemble either due to special tools or egress -- I hate to remove those zero insertion force ribbon cables. If you are willing to upgrade a laptop, find a video on disassembling any model you are considering. Search for upgrading the component you are interested in upgrading plus the model of the laptop you considering. If upgrading is overwhelming for you, just get enough memory and disk to get you to your next purchase and make sure you can replace the battery.

Screen size and resolution are very subjective. For me, I want a big screen, but do not particularly care about resolution because my eyes are not as great as they used to be. If you are the kind of person who notices every detail or edits photos, visit local retailers to make sure your eyes are not going to be disappointed. As soon as you get your laptop, open paint, fill the screen with red then go full screen. Look for defective pixels. Most laptop warranties do not cover a few dead pixels, but most retailers let you return without a restocking fee for a certain period -- take advantage. I'm looking for a 17" screen that looks OK with two documents or web pages side by side.

Some people love a touchscreen. If you put your finger on my screen, you may not get it back. To each his own, but no need spending for a touchscreen if fingerprints drive you nuts. When will Corning give us a beautiful screen that is print-proof?

Most people think you should get an SSD. Not me. I've had two fail at work and cost per unit of storage is still too high. Frankly, I think they solve a problem that does not exist -- mechanical disks are fast enough for me. In fact, I prefer 5400 to 7200 just to keep the heat and noise down. I want 1t.

More RAM is better. No less than 6GB, 8GB is fine, but 12GB is better. 4GB is not enough these days.

They keyboard is something else you should try before you buy. Some games (and accountants) make use of a numeric keypad. Check the speakers out while you are in the store.

Two things about the battery: 1) make sure it suits your use. If you plan to use a laptop on long commutes, get a battery rated at least 3x the duration. 2) If you rely on a battery, make sure your laptop includes one which is easily replaced. Nothing like a spare battery in the bag for long trips.

Then there is the CPU -- the brains of the laptop. I used to get a current or last gen i5 and have ignored AMD chips in laptops due to heat. Looks like heat is no longer an issue with current gen AMD chips...

So, today I slipped in my dad's floor. I had my laptop, my daughter's laptop (both laptops were in a mesh book bag, not in a sleeve or anything), our drinks, and some of our food. Well, let's just say it didn't end well..I am okay, just a little sore, hopefully I won't be bad tomorrow. My daughter's laptop is okay, but my laptop got most of the drink spilled on it. My daughter wiped it off but she said there was liquid coming out of it, so she slightly shook it. When she opened it, it said that the cooling fan was not working properly and it cut off. It is an older laptop and has to stay plugged in all the time, so I plugged it up and tried turning it on. Well it wouldn't come on. I just left it alone hoping that it will work a little later.

But, it looks like I am now in need of a new laptop. I dont need anything special. Just something that will run Facebook, Facebook games, will let me check email, and download microsoft word and use it. Nothing fancy. A DVD player would be nice, but not completely necessary. So, I'm looking at the one at Walmart for 249.00. Does anyone know the specs on it?

And yes, I agree with riven3d's assessment. 4GB of RAM is almost not enough these days even for what you want to do, starbeck96. I'm shackled with 4GB of RAM right now and don't do much more than what you want to do and it's just bogging down my laptop badly. So... I'm looking to get one with at least 8GB of RAM in it, hopefully this BF.

For those curious: Kitty in my pic is current furbaby, Mew, curled up in a box far too small for her. Ha! "If I fits, I sleeps!"

Just FYI, when we type up the ad we put the basic specs of a computer there

this means it has a Pentium processor, 4GB of Ram, and a 1TB Hard Drive. for the price its lackluckster

Edit also, if you click the link it will take you right to the item so everything about it can be read

Thanks. I tried looking for it, but I was babysitting my 11 month nephew and he wouldn't have any of it..lol.

After looking at the specs, that will not do. My old one was 4 GB Ram, 500 GB hard drive, and was 1.9 gigahertz. And it had gotten to the point it was bogged down. UGH! I hate having to spend money on a new one...lol.

Any idea on the specs for the $99 laptop on Lenovo ad? Looking for a couple for my middle school kids....they won't be using them heavily...may be YouTube and word processing... Any help would be appreciated

I have yet to see an i9 processor in a door buster, but I am seeing a lot of discounted Optane computers which may include a iX+ designation (i5+, i7+, etc.). In theory Optane increases the performance of a mechanical hard drive to match that of an SSD by caching the files you use most. That's great for booting a PC or if you live in Office or some other large application, but less great for the things most people do all day long. From Anandtech...

Our SYSmark testing showed that for many common tasks, adding even a 32GB cache to a hard drive can bring performance up to the level of a SSD-only configuration. There are a lot of lightweight everyday workloads that can fit well in such a cache, and for those users the larger 64GB Optane Memory M10 doesn't bring worthwhile performance improvements over the 32GB Optane Memory.

On the other hand, it is clear that no amount of fast storage can make up for a system crippled by too little RAM, which is a disappointment in a time when SSDs are getting cheaper but RAM prices are still climbing. Optane SSDs may be the fastest swap devices money can buy, but they're no substitute for having adequate RAM. The 4GB low-end configuration we tested is simply not enough anymore, and for future storage caching tests we will consider 8GB as the absolute minimum requirement before any storage performance upgrades should be considered.

Our synthetic benchmarks of Intel's Optane Memory caching confirmed the most predictable effects of cache size compared to working set size, but didn't reveal many nuances of Intel's cache management strategies. There is clearly some overhead relative to accessing just the SSD, but not enough eliminate the fundamental performance advantages of 3D XPoint memory. There also appears to be some write caching and combining done with system RAM, trading a bit of safety for improved write performance beyond even what the Optane SSDs alone can handle. Whether it's advertised or not, this tends to be a feature of almost every third-party add-on software for storage acceleration. It's the simplest way to improve storage benchmark numbers and the tradeoffs are quite acceptable to many users.

The Optane Memory caching seems to be quite responsive to changes in usage patterns. One launch of an application is sufficient to bring its data into the cache, and Intel isn't shy about sending writes to the cache. It doesn't appear that the Optane Memory caching system does anything significant to reduce wear on the cache device, so Intel seems confident that these cache devices have plenty of write endurance.

It doesn't seem to add much to the cost of a laptop, so I suppose we should be looking for Optane systems. NOTE the recommendation of 8g of RAM. Which makes me think the $499.99 15.6 8th generation i7 with 16GB Optane plus 8GB DRAM and 1TB mechanical disk(Item #: 24327021 | Model #: 4AG15UA#ABA) is probably a pretty sweet laptop. Note that the same laptop without Optane (Item #: 24327020 | Model #: 4AL55UA#ABA) sells for the same price and is not part of the BF ad.

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I guess I am always passively surfing for a great deal on a good laptop. It's really confusing these days because we have lots of CPU, screen, memory, and storage options. Then there is the keyboard layout, whether it is backlit, the camera, battery life, and the speakers. Finally there is build quality.

Right now, I feel like Lenovo and Dell are building the best laptops. I have worked on a lot of laptops and most have some specific challenge you should be aware of (non-replaceable battery, hard to reach RAM or disk, or a case that is difficult to disassemble/reassemble either due to special tools or egress -- I hate to remove those zero insertion force ribbon cables. If you are willing to upgrade a laptop, find a video on disassembling any model you are considering. Search for upgrading the component you are interested in upgrading plus the model of the laptop you considering. If upgrading is overwhelming for you, just get enough memory and disk to get you to your next purchase and make sure you can replace the battery.

Screen size and resolution are very subjective. For me, I want a big screen, but do not particularly care about resolution because my eyes are not as great as they used to be. If you are the kind of person who notices every detail or edits photos, visit local retailers to make sure your eyes are not going to be disappointed. As soon as you get your laptop, open paint, fill the screen with red then go full screen. Look for defective pixels. Most laptop warranties do not cover a few dead pixels, but most retailers let you return without a restocking fee for a certain period -- take advantage. I'm looking for a 17" screen that looks OK with two documents or web pages side by side.

Some people love a touchscreen. If you put your finger on my screen, you may not get it back. To each his own, but no need spending for a touchscreen if fingerprints drive you nuts. When will Corning give us a beautiful screen that is print-proof?

Most people think you should get an SSD. Not me. I've had two fail at work and cost per unit of storage is still too high. Frankly, I think they solve a problem that does not exist -- mechanical disks are fast enough for me. In fact, I prefer 5400 to 7200 just to keep the heat and noise down. I want 1t.

More RAM is better. No less than 6GB, 8GB is fine, but 12GB is better. 4GB is not enough these days.

They keyboard is something else you should try before you buy. Some games (and accountants) make use of a numeric keypad. Check the speakers out while you are in the store.

Two things about the battery: 1) make sure it suits your use. If you plan to use a laptop on long commutes, get a battery rated at least 3x the duration. 2) If you rely on a battery, make sure your laptop includes one which is easily replaced. Nothing like a spare battery in the bag for long trips.

Then there is the CPU -- the brains of the laptop. I used to get a current or last gen i5 and have ignored AMD chips in laptops due to heat. Looks like heat is no longer an issue with current gen AMD chips...

Suggestions for a mid-ish level gaming laptop? I’ve been eyeing the $599 HP from Walmart, but I’m honestly out of my league here. My 11 year old son plays a lot of Steam games, and his current all in one with integrated graphics just isn’t cutting it.

Suggestions for a mid-ish level gaming laptop? I’ve been eyeing the $599 HP from Walmart, but I’m honestly out of my league here. My 11 year old son plays a lot of Steam games, and his current all in one with integrated graphics just isn’t cutting it.